The Search for the DADA Professor
by NeoSapien
Summary: Dumbledore's not-so-epic interview process for the next in a long, long, long line of DADA Professors continues. Will they be female? Male? Or... something ELSE?!?


Disclaimer: All characters are borrowed for purpose of parody. Please don't sue.  
  
  
  
The Search for the DADA Professor  
  
Professor McGonagall was talking to the headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, about the choice of the next Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.  
  
Sitting across from him in his office, she was amazed at the twinkle in his eye, always present even in the darkest of times.  
  
"I can't believe Albus manages to keep so cheerful with the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," she thought to herself. Out loud, she said, "So, with the large number of female applicants this year, I believe it would be a welcome change to have a witch as the next DADA teacher."  
  
"That ought to quiet the P.C. brigade, eh?" Dumbledore chuckled. "I'll keep it in mind, Minerva. Take care," he said, shaking McGonagall's hand as she stood.  
  
When the door clicked shut, Dumbledore slumped back into his chair. The twinkle of amusement in his eye flickered out. He looked over the list of candidates and groaned.  
  
"Every single year," he muttered, lighting a cigarette. "Come in," he called.  
  
A woman, young in appearance but of indeterminate age, stepped lightly into his office.  
  
"Name?" Dumbledore asked.  
  
"Sherry Bobbins."  
  
"You mean Mary Pop-"  
  
"No! Sherry Bobbins! I'm a completely original creation!"  
  
"I… see. Qualifications?"  
  
"I am expert in singing songs, baking cakes, kite-flying, and other wholesome, magical activities."  
  
"Do you have any, er, dark, terrible secrets to hide? I'm afraid all of our previous professors have had at least one."  
  
"No, I'm practically perfect in every way."  
  
"Experience resisting the Dark Arts?"  
  
"I spent two entire weeks in the household of an average American middle-class family."  
  
A twitch of Dumbledore's cigarette displayed how impressed he was. "Well, let's see how you handle one of our more troublesome students." He snapped his fingers and Draco Malfoy appeared.  
  
"Pop quiz, hotshot," snapped the young Slytherin. "You're teaching the 5th-year class how to treat Wyvern bites, but I'm busy hexing Neville Longbottom to tears in a corner. What do you do, what DO you do?"  
  
"I make you his partner for the rest of the term, to practice his curses on until he gets them COMPLETELY right."  
  
"She's good," muttered Malfoy.  
  
"All right, let's see how you handle one of our best students." Dumbledore gestured, and Draco was replaced by Hermione Granger.  
  
"Oh Ms. Bobbins, I'm ever so excited to meet you! I've been studying all summer long, and I've already read all of our textbooks! I can't wait to discuss wards against vampires and shields against curses and protection charms for Muggles and I've already written this six-foot-long essay on the history of the Dark Arts in the 1960s and I hope you'll look at it and I'm working on ways to detect unregistered Animagi and-"  
  
Thirty seconds later, a shrieking Sherry Bobbins fled down the stairwell.  
  
"Next!" called Dumbledore. He dropped his spent cigarette butt into the empty ashtray, lighting another.  
  
A short, bald man in a green sports jacket entered, his hands deep in his large coat pockets.  
  
"Name?"  
  
"Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmannuel Ambroise-"  
  
"Nickname?" Dumbledore interrupted.  
  
"My friends call me, 'The Wizard'."  
  
"Just, 'the Wizard'? How about your enemies?"  
  
"Oz, the Great and Powerful!"  
  
Dumbledore stared at the man. "So you are the Wonderful Wizard of Oz?"  
  
The Wizard nodded.  
  
Dumbledore sighed. "I'm sorry, but we've already had a humbug as DADA professor. Chap by the name of Gilderoy Lockhart."  
  
"But I've studied since then! Haven't you read the later books?"  
  
"Mmm-hmm. Next."  
  
"I have a bag of magic from Glinda, the Good Witch!"  
  
"Next!"  
  
The Wizard left, muttering about Gandalf clones and discrimination. An old, wrinkled witch entered the office.  
  
"And you are?"  
  
"Oh, my name isn't important, my pretty."  
  
"Your experience with the Dark Arts?"  
  
"I'm expert at confectionary transfiguration."  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Oh, gingerbread houses, licorice driveways, turning children into cookies, that sort of thing."  
  
Dumbledore groaned. "Do the names, Hansel and Gretel, mean anything to you?"  
  
The witch paled. "Oh, I have to go, I have someone, er, thing, in the oven!"  
  
"Next!" Dumbledore called again, lighting another cigarette.  
  
"Poisoned apples," said the following witch.  
  
"Next!"  
  
"Knitting needles."  
  
"Next!"  
  
"Vegetable-vehicular conversion… though I'm afraid my spells have a strict time limit."  
  
"Next!"  
  
"There are some call who call me… Tim?" drawled the enchanter.  
  
"Next! Next! NEXT!" hollered Dumbledore.  
  
The most hideous hag Dumbledore had ever beheld entered the office, her skeletal head covered with a frightful wig topped by a paisley kerchief, ghastly eyeshadow spreading to her flattened nostrils, and a loathsome dress of corduroy and, what else?, paisley.  
  
"OOOOH!" she wailed in a tone that cracked Dumbledore's left lens. "PROFESSOR DUMBLEDORE! I'm SO EXCITED to meet you!"  
  
Dumbledore uncringed himself. "Ahem… name, please?"  
  
"OOH! I'm Mrs. Sealing-Gunk!"  
  
"'Mrs. Sealing-Gunk'?" he repeated incredulously.  
  
"Ooh! Don't wear it out!"  
  
"Your, er, experience with the Dark Arts?"  
  
"OOOH! I've bin fighting nasty Dark Wizards for years! I know more curses, I mean how to defend against them, than any other witch! OOH! I can't wait to meet that sweet Harry Potter boy!"  
  
"Voldemort."  
  
"OOOH!" screamed the hag. "YOU SAID YOU-KNOW-WHO'S NAME!! Oooh! But he's such a HANDSOME Dark Lord, isn't he? Oooh, there I go again!"  
  
"Voldemort, I know it's you."  
  
"OOH! I don't know WHAT you're talking about, Professor! I'm just eager to work with your bright young students!"  
  
"Get out, Voldemort."  
  
"All right," said the Dark Lord, pulling off his wig. "But what gave me away?"  
  
"Out."  
  
"Was it the eyeliner? Wormtail put too much on, didn't he?"  
  
"Out!"  
  
"It's the breasts. I need bigger breasts next time!"  
  
"OUT!"  
  
As the Dark Lord staggered down the stairs in his high heels, Dumbledore opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, took one out and lit the rest of them.  
  
The final applicant for the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts entered Dumbledore's office and goggled. The ashtray on Dumbledore's desk was the base for a pile of butts as high as the top of the Headmaster's, er, head.  
  
Dumbledore looked up. "Good morning."  
  
"Good morning," replied the applicant.  
  
"Why do you say that, when you know perfectly well that it's the afternoon?"  
  
"Oh," murmured the applicant.  
  
"Good evening!"  
  
"Good… evening?" hesitated the applicant.  
  
"Ah!" exclaimed Dumbledore, and scribbled on his notepad. He looked up again. "Name?"  
  
The applicant stared.  
  
"Name?" the Headmaster repeated.  
  
"You know my name."  
  
"Name?"  
  
"Please! We go through this every year!"  
  
"NAME?" Dumbledore demanded.  
  
The applicant sighed. "Severus Snape."  
  
"Ah." Dumbledore paused. "Identification?"  
  
Snape grimaced, then drew out his Apparition License.  
  
"That'll do." Dumbledore stared into space, then began singing to himself. "Gooooood niiiiiiiieeeeeyyiyiyiyiyiyi…"  
  
"Er… Professor?"  
  
Dumbledore looked at Snape, and sharply rang a bell on his desk. "What does that mean?"  
  
"You… rang the bell?"  
  
"Wrong!"  
  
"You… didn't ring the bell?"  
  
"I'm quite certain I did."  
  
Snape hesitated. "So you did ring it?"  
  
"Ah!" Dumbledore jotted down something else. He raised his view again. "What job do you seek?"  
  
"Defense Against the Dark Arts."  
  
"Qualifications?"  
  
"I have been Potions Master here at Hogwarts for fourteen years."  
  
"Relevant qualifications?"  
  
"I have extensive knowledge of the Dark Arts."  
  
"Source of experience?"  
  
"You know the source of experience."  
  
"Source of experience?"  
  
"Please, Headmaster!"  
  
"SOURCE OF EXPERIENCE?"  
  
"I was a Death Eater."  
  
"Hmm." Dumbledore took to his pad again. He glanced back. "Why… is a raven… like a writing desk?"  
  
"I beg your pardon?"  
  
Dumbledore sprang onto his chair. "FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE! ANNNNTTT!!!"  
  
Snape gibbered. "I don't know!"  
  
"Too late!"  
  
"But I don't know!"  
  
Dumbledore leaned back and began "singing" again. "Gooooood niiiiiiiieeeeeyyiyiyiyiyiyi…"  
  
"Oh. Oh dear, this again," a shaken Snape said.  
  
Dumbledore snapped his fingers, and the rest of the faculty entered the office, each holding several signs. Snape stared at them.  
  
"What are they here for?"  
  
"Make up a limerick," Dumbledore replied.  
  
"Now?!"  
  
"About Harry Potter."  
  
"Is everything about Harry Potter?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"I'll need some time."  
  
Dumbledore stood. "FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO!"  
  
Terrified, Snape began. "There, er, once was a boy named Potter, who er, had a, hum, lovely daughter, she had a good time, I can't think of a rhyme, something something hotter!"  
  
Dumbledore looked at the faculty. "Well?"  
  
They held up signs: 5.0, 6.3, 3.2, 0.1, 4.7, -i, 0.0.  
  
"What does that mean?!"  
  
"What do you think it means, Severus?"  
  
"I don't know!"  
  
Dumbledore took out a balloon and inflated it.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
Dumbledore pointed at his Pensieve in his cabinet. Snape looked at it, and Dumbledore popped the balloon behind his head.  
  
"Aaah!" Snape screamed and jumped two feet in the air. "You're crazy! You're ALL crazy!"  
  
"Hm!" Dumbledore took another note.  
  
Snape screwed up his face in rage. "You're absolutely bonkers! You're doing this to humiliate me! You never intended to give me the position! You MANIAC! I hate you! I… I… I'm going back to Lord Voldemort!"  
  
Dumbledore looked at the faculty/judges. "Well?"  
  
The new numbers: Perfect 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0  
  
Snape gibbered again.  
  
The twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes returned. "I'm sorry Severus, we already filled the position half an hour ago! We're just twiddling your wand."  
  
Snape burst into sobs and fled out of the office.  
  
Half an hour earlier, the second-to-last applicant hesitantly entered the office. Dumbledore glanced at the gangly man, clad in shabby red robes and a ridiculously stereotypical pointed hat, sequined unevenly with the pathetic misspelling, WIZZARD.  
  
"Name?"  
  
"Er… yes?"  
  
"Your name, please?"  
  
"Rincewind."  
  
"Just Rincewind?"  
  
"Er… yes?"  
  
Dumbledore tried to sigh, but he had ran out of them hours before. "Academic experience?"  
  
"I am currently Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography at Unseen University."  
  
"Unseen University? I don't believe I'm familiar with that institution."  
  
"It's not on this world."  
  
"I beg your pardon?"  
  
"It's on the Discworld."  
  
"The what?"  
  
"The Discworld. It's a flat world sitting on the backs of four elephants standing on the giant turtle A'Tuin."  
  
Dumbledore smiled the smile of the mad gazing at the even madder. "Of course. And how did you get to Hogwarts from this, er, Discworld?"  
  
"Oh, I was bringing the Librarian a banana, but I got lost in L- Space, the hyperdimensional continuum that connects all libraries in all realities, and wandered out into your library."  
  
"A banana?"  
  
"Oh. Right. Our Librarian is an orangutan."  
  
"Are all librarians on the Discworld…"  
  
"No, just ours." Rincewind paused. "People think it's a bit unusual, to tell you the truth."  
  
"You don't say," Dumbledore replied without a trace of irony. "Well, Mr. Rincewind, what is your experience with the Dark Arts?"  
  
"The what?"  
  
"The Dark Arts."  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Bad magic."  
  
"Oh. Well. I've been around a great deal of black magic, but I haven't really, er, seen much."  
  
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "You closed your eyes?"  
  
"Turned my back, usually. Well, first at least. Then I moved my feet, as quickly as possible."  
  
"And how long have you been practicing magic?"  
  
"I practice all the time."  
  
"But how long?"  
  
"Well, how do you say this, I actually specialize in casting spells without, er, casting spells."  
  
"Ah!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "Bruce Lee, Enter the Dragon! The style of fighting without fighting!"  
  
"Well… no."  
  
"Then dynamically, like how Muggles deliberately do not use their nuclear weapons?"  
  
"More like, not casting any spells at all because I, er, can't."  
  
"You can't."  
  
"I can't."  
  
"At all."  
  
"At all."  
  
"And you're a wizard."  
  
"Er. Yes."  
  
"I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Rincewind, but are you good at, well, anything?"  
  
"I do have a talent for languages. And running. I'm considered an expert, where I'm from."  
  
"Really? Where do you run to?"  
  
"To? I never run to. That would be silly. I always run away. Away is where I want to go."  
  
Dumbledore broke into a manic grin. He stood and pumped Rincewind's arm. "Congratulations, Mr. Rincewind! You are Hogwarts' newest Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts! You are indeed the man to prepare our students to face, or rather turn face and bolt from, the rise of the Dark Lord! I wish you luck (and you will need it) and expect to see you here August 15th to prepare your curriculum! Now, go! Go and meet your new co- workers!"  
  
"But-"  
  
"GO!"  
  
Dumbledore shoved Rincewind out of his office door and slammed it shut. Rincewind stood in the stairwell, muttering to himself. "But all I wanted was directions to the restroom…"  
  
Ten months later, Harry Potter confronted the Dark Lord. Again. But this time, things would be different. This time, thanks to his DADA classes, he was READY.  
  
"Look!" he pointed. "It's MRS. SEALING-GUNK!"  
  
"WHAT?" Voldemort hollered, turning around. "That's MY disguise!" After seeing nothing, Voldemort turned back, but saw only a dropped note, and a quickly diminishing dot on the horizon. He picked up the note.  
  
"Ha Ha Sucker," he read. Voldemort turned his head to the sky. "Robbed again! CURSE YOU, RINCEWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIND!!!!!"  
  
  
  
The End  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Apologies to J.K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Monty Python, and the creators of the Simpsons, etc. for shameless borrowing and er, misuse of characters and situations. (Dumbledore is not, I hope, a chain smoker, in real life. That is, "imaginary" real life. Or real "imaginary" life. Real imaginary real life. Yeah that's the ticket!) 


End file.
